On Mon, Jun 22, 2026 at 05:30:33PM +0100, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 22, 2026 at 06:11:44PM +0200, Laurent Vivier wrote:
> > A malicious guest can craft virtqueue descriptors with arbitrary lengths.
> > control_out() calls iov_size() on the guest-supplied scatter-gather list
> > and passes the result directly to g_malloc(), allowing a guest to force
> > QEMU to attempt multi-gigabyte allocations and crash the host process.
> > 
> > Fix this by copying at most sizeof(struct virtio_console_control) into a
> > stack-local variable instead of allocating a buffer sized by the guest.
> > handle_control_message() only accesses the fixed-size id, event, and
> > value fields, so no data beyond the struct was ever needed.
> 
> Does anyone have thoughts on whether we should treat guest initiated
> unbounded allocs as a security issue ?
> 
> IIUC, this flaw would require root in the guest OS in order to craft
> the malicious virtqueue descriptors.
> 
> A self-initiated crash triggered by root would not historically
> be enough justification for CVE. We would require it to be triggered
> by unprivileged user.
> 
> Nested virt with device assignment could change that equation though
> as the L2 guest could be considered an unpriv user from the L1 POV.
> 
> Also in theory the large alloc might be large enough to consume all
> host RAM but not large enough to trigger OOM kill of QEMU. This might
> impact operation of other co-located VMs on the same host.

Don't see why not. We can treat it as low priority and no embargo.

> Anyone think this is bad enough to justify a CVE ? Or should we treat
> these OOM scenarios maerely as "hardening" bugs, where they require
> 'root' in the L1 guest ?


> > Cc: [email protected]
> > Resolves: https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/3585
> > Signed-off-by: Laurent Vivier <[email protected]>
> > ---
> >  hw/char/virtio-serial-bus.c | 34 +++++++---------------------------
> >  1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 27 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/hw/char/virtio-serial-bus.c b/hw/char/virtio-serial-bus.c
> > index cd234dc6db1d..c1973f0248fc 100644
> > --- a/hw/char/virtio-serial-bus.c
> > +++ b/hw/char/virtio-serial-bus.c
> > @@ -344,22 +344,16 @@ void virtio_serial_throttle_port(VirtIOSerialPort 
> > *port, bool throttle)
> >  }
> >  
> >  /* Guest wants to notify us of some event */
> > -static void handle_control_message(VirtIOSerial *vser, void *buf, size_t 
> > len)
> > +static void handle_control_message(VirtIOSerial *vser,
> > +                                   struct virtio_console_control *gcpkt)
> >  {
> >      VirtIODevice *vdev = VIRTIO_DEVICE(vser);
> >      struct VirtIOSerialPort *port;
> >      VirtIOSerialPortClass *vsc;
> > -    struct virtio_console_control cpkt, *gcpkt;
> > +    struct virtio_console_control cpkt;
> >      uint8_t *buffer;
> >      size_t buffer_len;
> >  
> > -    gcpkt = buf;
> > -
> > -    if (len < sizeof(cpkt)) {
> > -        /* The guest sent an invalid control packet */
> > -        return;
> > -    }
> > -
> >      cpkt.event = virtio_lduw_p(vdev, &gcpkt->event);
> >      cpkt.value = virtio_lduw_p(vdev, &gcpkt->value);
> >  
> > @@ -457,41 +451,27 @@ static void control_in(VirtIODevice *vdev, VirtQueue 
> > *vq)
> >  
> >  static void control_out(VirtIODevice *vdev, VirtQueue *vq)
> >  {
> > +    struct virtio_console_control cpkt;
> >      VirtQueueElement *elem;
> >      VirtIOSerial *vser;
> > -    uint8_t *buf;
> >      size_t len;
> >  
> >      vser = VIRTIO_SERIAL(vdev);
> >  
> > -    len = 0;
> > -    buf = NULL;
> >      for (;;) {
> > -        size_t cur_len;
> > -
> >          elem = virtqueue_pop(vq, sizeof(VirtQueueElement));
> >          if (!elem) {
> >              break;
> >          }
> >  
> > -        cur_len = iov_size(elem->out_sg, elem->out_num);
> > -        /*
> > -         * Allocate a new buf only if we didn't have one previously or
> > -         * if the size of the buf differs
> > -         */
> > -        if (cur_len > len) {
> > -            g_free(buf);
> > -
> > -            buf = g_malloc(cur_len);
> > -            len = cur_len;
> > +        len = iov_to_buf(elem->out_sg, elem->out_num, 0, &cpkt, 
> > sizeof(cpkt));
> > +        if (len == sizeof(cpkt)) {
> > +            handle_control_message(vser, &cpkt);
> >          }
> > -        iov_to_buf(elem->out_sg, elem->out_num, 0, buf, cur_len);
> >  
> > -        handle_control_message(vser, buf, cur_len);
> >          virtqueue_push(vq, elem, 0);
> >          g_free(elem);
> >      }
> > -    g_free(buf);
> >      virtio_notify(vdev, vq);
> >  }
> >  
> > -- 
> > 2.54.0
> > 
> > 
> 
> With regards,
> Daniel
> -- 
> |: https://berrange.com       ~~        https://hachyderm.io/@berrange :|
> |: https://libvirt.org          ~~          https://entangle-photo.org :|
> |: https://pixelfed.art/berrange   ~~    https://fstop138.berrange.com :|


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